Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Black Bloc in Rostock

anon | 04.06.2007 23:14 | G8 Germany 2007 | Analysis | Repression | Social Struggles | World

Black Bloc at the anti-G8 manifestation in Rostock, 2nd June

The day started with uncertain conclusion. We would march to Rostock, to express our absolute resistance to the G8 world order. We march not to riot but to exist in resistance. We work for peace and liberation, ours is a war of love, a war against wars and we are prepared to fight to defend and advance our freedom. We march in a bloc, arms linked, united in struggle. Commited to looking out for each other and all those who the state would crush under its mighty boot. Peace is our desire so we fight those who inflict the greatest violence, knowing that the states violence is more than simply a response to our own, but the very function of power itself therefore we fight or we die.

Over the PA we learn that the police have beaten up and arrested some protesters. Marching to the Harbour in Rostock it is clear that the police will likely breach the fragile peace and further escalate the repression. Despite the great threat from the well armed authorities we bravely continue to march, together ready to face violent confrontation and resist. We are all dressed in black, the uniform of the bloc, dark glasses and hats, each in the crowd largely indistinguishable from the others. We move through the streets of Rostock in nervous but bold anticipation.

Arriving at the harbour 10,000 protesters stand amidst a rainbow of flags and the police lurk in the side streets waiting to strike. The bloc put themselves between the crowd and the police, ready to defend our brothers and sisters. All is calm until the police start to baton charge the crowd. It is widely beleived that police agent provocatours were present in Rostock to kick of the violence - a tactic used by the Carabinieri in Genoa. The black bloc will not create violence, its philosophy is to respond to it with opposing force, in self defence. The police need only a tenuous excuse to start the repression. Quickly the situation intensifies as police beat those who stand in their way. During this first wave of baton charges hundreds of protesters retreat into the crowd. Gangs of police bludgeon people lying on the ground covering their heads. Protesters, locals, photographers and even medics are hit, no-one is immune as they beat everone in their path. Soon a swarm of black bloc amass to force the cops back, away from the crowd. The cops retreat into the side streets and the panic subsides a little. Quickly, people start ripping up paving stones and smashing them into pieces to throw. The bloc re-forms and marches straight towards the police line, many now with rocks in hand. The first clash is about to ensue but some clowns and peace activists put themselves between the bloc and the police line to stop the violence from escalating. These bold and well meaning efforts could be commended but for the fact that they failed to take into account the detail of that situation. Non-violence is a useful tactic sometimes, but as an ideology applied in every situation it can be suicide. For a few moments they were able to delay further confrontation but at great risk to themselves and the manifestion as a whole. The bloc was not able to advance but the police were, rendering our tactics less employable while the police remained fully at power to beat us all. The bloc retreated from this point only for those cops to then charge again. Along a parralell street many more cops amassed and baton charged at the crowd. Now hundreds of the bloc responded by hurling rocks and bottles at the police line and they were forced to retreat. They would charge again, the crowd would stampede away, then a great hail of rocks and glass would descend on the cops once more until they retreated. This process was repeated many times as the crowd asserted its control over the area. Tear gas was shot into the crowd only for the canisters to be thrown back at the cops by members of the bloc. There are reports that many cops were thus injured by their own chemical weapons, sympathy is hard to find here. A police helicoptor hovered overhead and informants with cameras and mobile phones directed the riot cops into the battle. In an inspired action a parked car was set on fire. The blaze filled the air with acrid black smoke, not very nice for the environment but it meant that the battle could not be seen from above. Now blind the police became much less effective at holding this street, while the masked up black bloc continued hurling rocks under the shadow of smoke. The bloc were steadily able to advance and take this side street barricading it. For over an hour the police repression was paralysed and the harbour of Rostock belonged totally to the people. The police were visibly intimidated by the crowd. Later they moved in with water cannons filled with pepper spray and aimed directly at the densest parts of the demonstration, making no distinction between any of the protesters. Hundreds suffered the burning affects of the pepper spray. Many people discovered the violent potential of the state first hand. The speeches and music continued regardless. Police snatch sqauds started piling into the main part of the manisfestion to arrest people but were resisted this time by thousands of people with their hands raised in innocence. The police were cautious of escalating the situation now, knowing the force of the crowd and instead formed lines around the edge, under the protection of the water cannons. This stand off then turned into a carnival as people danced to the music, relieving the tension. The situation then became quite surreal as the police held firm but the crowd mocked them in revelry. The lesson of this is that we are peace loving people but DO NOT FUCK WITH US. We will resist this current order and we will fight you if you try to stop us. The manifestation became more peaceful as the cops stopped attacking us and many people started to enjoy the concert. Details of other incidents will emerge later but it is clear that hundreds of people were injured in a situation perpetrated and perpetuated by the police.

It is in the interests of authorities to portray anti-state, anti-corporate globalisation activists as violent people to undermine the legitamacy of their cause in the eyes of the public. The corporate media are complicit and necessary in this conspiracy. Through the manipulation of riot images they portray us as the instigators and the police as the keepers of the peace, nothing could be further from the truth. They are thus able to divide and conquor, setting the ''good'' protestors against the ''bad'' creating an internal policing within the movement and a false dichotemy, with many people become unwitting pawns in the greater system of control. Many well meaning people are manipulated in this way, to the detriment of the movement and the world it seeks to save. Unfortunaly the world is such that we cannot acheive the changes we desire with the means we are given, so we create new means to resist. Not since Genoa has the resistance to the G8 been so hardline, people pandered to the G8 in Gleneagles and it acheived nothing. Now we fight to overthrow this order, but it is not going to happen at this G8 summit or any other global spectacle, for the liberation must be absolute and universal. What we see in these few days is a manifestation of the latent rebellion which permeates our whole world. The age of empire is in its final days, the lines are drawn and its up to you to decide to die with the old world or live with the new.

Long may the bloc fight for the liberation...

anon

Comments

Display the following 6 comments

  1. don't throw stones... — block and move
  2. People in Glass Houses — Dave C
  3. Suicide? — Fly Posters
  4. Don’t escalate the violence — Ian Fiddies
  5. Not Black Block — Danny
  6. LISTEN UP PUNK ASS! — scumpunkgirlyfranchise
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech